Fidel Castro: Oil spill shows corporate domination

Fidel Castro says the spreading oil slick fouling the Gulf of Mexico is proof that the world's most powerful governments cannot control large
corporations that now dictate the public's destiny.

Officials are rushing to seal an underwater oil gusher triggered after a deep-water rig operated by BP PLC exploded and sank on April 20, killing 11
people. It still is unclear whether some of the 3 million gallons of spilled crude could eventually reach Cuba's shores - though government
scientists have appeared on state television to say the island is not immediately at risk.

In an opinion piece published by state media on Saturday, Castro said the disaster "shows how little governments can do against those who control the
capital, who in both the United States and Europe are, due to the economy of our globalized planet, those who decide the destiny of the
public."

Mr. Castro has hit the nail on the head. These corporations have total control and instead of using their money to clean up their mess they ar emaking
the gvoernments do it which comes from tax payer dollars. BP doesn't have to worry about shedding out more than a couple bucks while we pay for their
mistakes. We should have told them we're not cleaning it up, you are! We should start telling that to all oil companies, if you want to drill or
import or do whatever that is possibly dangerous with oil it is your problem to deal with whatever happens.

Last year the Obama administration granted oil giant BP a special exemption from a legal requirement that it produce a detailed environmental
impact study on the possible effects of its Deepwater Horizon drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico, an article Wednesday in the Washington Post
reveals.

Federal documents show that the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) gave BP a "categorical exclusion" on April 6, 2009
to commence drilling with Deepwater Horizon even though it had not produced the impact study required by a law known as the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA). The report would have included probable ecological consequences in the event of a spill.

The exemption came less than one month after BP had requested it in a March 10 "exploration plan" submitted to the MMS. The plan said that because a
spill was "unlikely," no additional "mitigation measures other than those required by regulation and BP policy will be employed to avoid, diminish
or eliminate potential impacts on environmental resources." BP also assured the MMS that any spill would not seriously hurt marine wildlife and that
"due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."

Kierán Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Post that the Obama administration's exemption effectively "put BP
entirely in control," adding, "The agency's oversight role has devolved to little more than rubber-stamping British Petroleum's self-serving
drilling plans."

...Obama's decision to disregard scientific evidence is not the result of a mistaken policy, however. It is the result of definite class
interests....

Federal documents show that the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) gave BP a "categorical exclusion" on April 6,
2009 to commence drilling with Deepwater Horizon even though it had not produced the impact study required by a law known as the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The report would have included probable ecological consequences in the event of a spill.

This is sooo........not good. But hey, wait a few months and they'll have their study results. All they'll have to do is go take pictures.

The report would have included probable ecological consequences in the event of a spill.

BP also assured the MMS that any spill would not seriously hurt marine wildlife and that "due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response
capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."

...Obama's decision to disregard scientific evidence is not the result of a mistaken policy, however. It is the result of definite class
interests....

thanks for the linked article...

i'm cherry picking data in this reply post...in the same manner the BP & cohorts cherry-picked the lesser threats of environmental impact.

see a 'spill' in the oil drillers jargon is anything that exceeds normal spillage in the normal process of extraction...
Which i'd say it is NOT the absolute pristine condition of absolutely no oil/petroleum into the waters off the Rig. Oil platform operations normally
include the burnoff of the gas byproduct all the time, the soot & vapors from the burnoff pollutes both the air and the surface water downwind from
the rig... a sort of fallout if-you-will...
so there's plent of imparement of the environment but is viewd as part of the operation.
Just when does contamination become a 'spill'? 100 bbls 10k bbls?

i heard rumors that BP is only going to be levied the max cost of $750M
because 'nothing' imaginable could go wrong with this sophisticated rig, all the technological safegards and disaster models say so...
(as in meteor strikes, or huge gas deposits under extreme pressure, all are next to impossible...)

Now, lets investigate the regulatory agency and see if the impact studies & potential damage reports bring into account other factors such as the
location-> in a sort of Hurricane Alley in the Gulf of Mexico

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